Featured Cappadocia and a Vespasian Hemidrachm

Just found this new book - at GBP 120 I will not be investing in a copy - but if anyone has access I would be pleased to get thoughts (it claims to cover Chinese, Seleucid, Roman and Dutch monetary matters !!!

https://www.routledge.com/Money-Cur...-to-AD-2000/Spek-Leeuwen/p/book/9781138628359

Specific to this thread however note that above I criticised Butcher for giving us 'theoretical' silver weight (rather than raw weight and fineness data)

Below are the summary contents. Noting that the medievalist Mayhew immediately follows the Romanist Butcher - I wonder why Mayhew includes a section:

"Conversion to silver weight unnecessary"?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Chapter 8. Kevin Butcher,

Monetary Policy in the Roman Empire (165-184)

Introduction

Roman conceptions of money and coinage

Inflation

The character of the coinage

Debasement and stability

Conclusion

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 9. Nick Mayhew,

Money in England from the middle ages to the nineteenth century (pp. 185-205)

Introduction

Nominalism

Actual and theoretical intrinsic content of currency

The variable value of silver

Conversion to silver weight unnecessary

Primacy of the underlying data

Nominal price and wage data in Strasbourg and China Monetary policy

Additional note

 

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Thanks for highlighting this book - it also looked interesting to me. After browsing, it seems well worth the price of eBook, even cheaper if you "rent" temporarily through services like Amazon.com for Kindle, some of these might be available to readers in specific countries. A couple of quotes directly on the topics you highlighted:

"Silver weight conversion is unhistorical because the theoretical weight significantly exceeded the reality, but the idea of calculating in terms of silver weight is also philosophically flawed, in so far as it assumes (as Locke did) that silver provides some kind of constant yardstick which can be applied over centuries and continents. In fact, the value of silver varied markedly over time and place."
...
"In any case, the original data on prices and wages have first to be collected in nominal face-value prices. The cost of living can then be calculated relative to the wages of craftsmen or labourers, yielding a simple ratio, free of currency complications, which can still be compared internationally or over time. Converting the raw prices and wages to silver weight does not alter the ratio derived from nominal face-value prices and wages, but is an unnecessary additional calculation, which may introduce error."​

 

Many thanks indeed! - the second quote looks like it is probably from Mayhew - perhaps the first one is too? Would be most grateful for the citations.

Rob T

 

Yes, apologies, both were from Nick Mayhew Chapter 9 "Money in England from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century"

van der Spek, R. (Ed.), van Leeuwen, B. (Ed.). (2018). Money, Currency and Crisis. London: Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315210711
(note other academic access options at doi URL)

 

Many thanks for the clarification. It seems to me that Mayhew here is - in general terms - completely rejecting the sort of theory that lay behind Butcher 1990 (and perhaps to some extent Harl 1996) concerning the silver issues of the eastern Roman satellites. I suppose Mayhew has in mind things like what happened to UK silver coin from around 1870. World silver bullion values dropped from about 1 : 16 against gold to about 1 : 35 as I best recall – but it had no effect at all on the value of UK silver coin against gold……..

I have a bunch of problems with understanding silver issues of the eastern Roman satellites – in part I never handled many of these coins – but also I never came across a reference work that gave a clear simple illustrative account of the Eastern "Greek Imperial" silver either. Meanwhile most of what has been written over the last 40 years plus seems professionally mannered, contradictory, and behind pay walls of various sorts.

Back in 1990 Howgego was clear that the "Attalid Cistopherus" weighed 3 attic drachms but was worth 4 attic drachms. His evidence inferred from countermarks (!). We also have Harl in 1996 saying the "The Cistopherus" was worth 3 denarii under Augustus, and later 4 denarii under Hadrian. But this not backed up by any ‘primary’ sources at all as far as I can see – and seems to be largely based upon the sort of silver value data Mayhew tends to reject.

Part of the confusion for myself began with the way Sear put so much emphasis on the copper coinage back in 1982, at the expense of explaining the silver. Interesting to contrast that with the way Steve Album catalogued the coinage of roughly the same area for the later medieval period in his Checklist (Ilkhans, Timurids, Ottomans). There the many diverse copper issues were virtually ignored in order to focus on explaining the silver.

Rob T

 

In their The Metallurgy of Roman Silver Coinage Butcher and Ponting found on average that Flavian Cappadocian Caesarean silver issues had a fineness of around 48%. The didrachm with an average weight of 6.85g contained about 3.29g of silver, the drachm at 3.4g in weight contained 1.63g of silver. The average contemporary denarius contained 2.72g of silver. If a Caesarean drachm and denarius were of equal value then the Caesarean coinage was overvalued by 67%!

NB: Overvaluation against the denarius also occurred with Flavian cistophori. Late in Domitian's reign three denarii contained about 9.32g of silver and his cistophori contained around 8.12g - an overvaluation of 15%. Before Domitian's coinage reforms in 82 the overvaluation of one cistophorus against three denarii was nearer 7%-9% with effective parity between the two denominations.

 

I don't think there is any commodity that can be measured or accepted as a constant fixed value. Big gold strike somewhere, its value decreases. Silver mines close, silver goes up. If there was any commodity that was a measure or store of value, though not very portable and not very stable, it was grain. To the average person of the ancient world precious metal prices were about as important to them as they are to us. For the government of city states, kingdoms and empires of that period the availability and the value of precious metals was essential for the payment of services to the state, especially its armed forces, but for most people it was the availability of the humble bronze coinage and the fecundity of their flocks and fields that determined the fate and fortune of their lives. Even merchants, while they might have used drachmas and denarii as coins of account, usually exchanged good for goods rather than cash in their transactions. We may be overstating the importance of specie in the smooth operation of the marketplace.

 

Ya can't eat gold, but it does look purdy!

Kinda like the Hierarchy of Human Needs...

 

Seems at least plausible. Howgego claims hard evidence that Diocletian overvalued his imperial silver by 60%, and that his nummus might be 185% overvalued – see page 19 here:

https://www.academia.edu/4229000/Why_did_ancient_states_strike_coins

Follows the widely held belief that the Cistopherus changed at 3 denarii. But is there any textual evidence for that, and if so – where was it going on?

Rob T

 

I would rather say the ancient world tends to look more like the world before the suspension of gold convertibility during WWI. And the UK attempt to restore convertibility after that was memorably important for very many in the 1920’s - at least where I come from. I have to admit I fear few populations have actually been as ill informed on macro-economic matters as our current one.

If you are saying monetary matters are very complex so we must proceed with caution I completely agree. But I would not want to go down the road of belittling its importance too much. That was the line taken by the very influential Moses Finley, and I am not alone in seeing that line as being as much Keynsian propaganda as objective history (see for instance comments by von Reden)

People in rural agriculture might get by without coin at all, but if they did they would often be at the mercy of their landlords. Propertied urban types too could get by on book credit for a good while. It seems to be poor urban artisans living hand to mouth who depended heavily of copper coin day to day – for them it could be a life or death matter.

The reason I turn away from the problems of valuing the “Greek Imperial” copper is just that it seems a way more difficult task than valuing the silver. Probably administered in ad hoc ways by town councils with very large fiat components of value. So running straight at that whole problem rather than starting by figuring out just the silver seems to risk making the best the enemy of the good.

Rob T